Check out this cool episode from the first season! Be on the lookout for the musical performance where David Cassidy's hair switches from long and parted in the middle to cut without bangs and back again!
Friday, June 11, 2010
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
The Names Behind The Icons
Mental Floss has posted a great article featuring the real names for characters such as Captain Crunch, Barbie and Mr. Clean. Who knew? Check it out!
The Best of The World of Wonder: The Apes Get Funky
This was one of my favorite albums as a kid and it still holds a giant place in my heart today! It's Jeff Wayne's Space Shuttle playing The Theme From Star Trek and The Planet of The Apes. It features funky versions of these tunes as well as the themes from Batman and Superman and a few original tunes that have titles such as "The Ape Planet" and "Beyond The Outer Limits". The first track has a few skips but the rest of the album is in pretty decent shape. Hope you like this as much as I do! Enjoy!
Jeff Wayne's Space Shuttle - Theme From Star Trek
Sunday, June 06, 2010
There's A Moon Out Tonight
Keith Moon changed the face of drummers forever. Since "Moon the Loon" appeared on the scene with the legendary group, The Who, the stereotype of the rock and roll drummer has been that of the crazy, out of control, wild child. Even Animal, the Muppet drummer, is based on Keith Moon. Moon was an amazing human being besides the image and was an interesting character as well as an extremely creative drummer. One of Moon's oddest moments was a solo album that he released in 1975. Rather than using the album as a chance to showcase his legendary drumming skill, Moon chose to sing on all the songs, and only played drums on "Crazy Like A Fox", "The Kids Are Alright" and "Move Over Ms. L" In addition to Moon's singing, the album features contributions from Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, David Bowie, Joe Walsh, Jim Keltner, Bobby Keys, Klaus Voorman, John Sebastian, Flo & Eddie (Mark Volman & Howard Kaylan of The Turtles), Spencer Davis, Dick Dale and Suzi Quatro's sister Patti Quatro. The idea for a solo album came from Moon's bandmates (John Entwistle and Roger Daltrey) releasing their own albums. The album was widely considered a joke, and received many bad reviews. Moon was not dissuaded by the reviews, and started work on another similar album, which was never finished. Two Sides of the Moon was re-released by Repertoire Records in 1997, including the finished songs that Moon had made for his next album. Two Sides... was again re-released by Castle Music and Sanctuary Records in July 2006, as a two-disc Deluxe Edition, featuring the original 10 songs plus 41 bonus tracks. Here for you now id the original 1975 release of "Two Sides of The Moon" featuring classic cover songs with a twist. In addition to the songs, I've also included the art work for both sides of the album cover. If you don't understand why I am including both, you will once you download "Two Sides of The Moon." Enjoy!
Keith Moon-Two Sides of the Moon
Office Rock
Here's a video clip of the Grass Roots performing "Let's Live For Today" (one of my all time favorite songs) on the Jimmy Durante show. If the blond haired guitarist on the left looks familiar, you might be a fan of The Office. It's none other than Creed Bratton. And believe it or not, his real name is Creed Bratton. Enjoy!
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Finally A New Podcast!
I knew it had been a while since I put together a podcast but had no idea it was almost a year ago! I had started this podcast back in July of last year and just finished it last night. It's a special podcast in two ways. First, it features songs from soundtracks of both films and television shows. It's a wide variety of genres and eras so it covers a lot of ground. The other odd thing about this one is that it features absolutely no talking from me whatsoever. Some of you will be pleased to hear that I am sure but at the same time, there is no list of tracks either in print or in the podcast itself. Most of the songs are recognizable and whatever talking there is in the podcast is directly from soundtracks as well. Please enjoy this very special edition of Dartman's Whacky Podcast! Here is Dartman's Whacky Podcast #14: The Soundtrack Edition. Enjoy!
Podcast #14
Sunday, May 30, 2010
The NPR Strikes Back: Part 5
Here is my final Empire Post (for now) and it can only be the final two episodes of the National Public Radio dramatization of the classic sequel to Star Wars. I hope you enjoyed this past week of Empire goodies. I hope to post more Star Wars related items in the future as well as the usual fun stuff! Also, I looking to making a new logo for the blog. If anyone has any ideas or even artwork please send it my way. As my time has become limited, I would love to have someone design a logo for me. Anyway, here are the final two episodes of NPR's The Empire Strikes Back. Enjoy!
The Empire Strikes Back Radio Drama Episode 9
The Empire Strikes Back Radio Drama Episode 10
Saturday, May 29, 2010
The Lunchbox Strikes Back
The lunchbox was a standard must have every year when I was a kid and if you had a super cool one with the latest hit movie or tv show, it was a bonus. I always felt bad for the kids who had to buy the hot lunch or take their lunch to school in brown bags and just assumed the brown baggers were too poor to get their own lunch box. These were the days of the metal lunchbox. Not those flimsy plastic ones that broke with one drop. However, as the 80s began, the metal ones were on their way out with the plastic ones coming on full throttle. This was evidenced by the several different lunchboxes released for The Empire Strikes Back.
This one was mine. It was, by far, the coolest of all of the lunchboxes that year. Featuring a great photo of Luke discovering Yoda on one side and an amazing shot of the Snowtroopers on Hoth on the other. 
The original Star Wars lunchbox was cool but this blew the doors off of that one. It was almost like someone said, "We have to make this lunchbox the coolest lunchbox in the world. We have to make the lunchbox just as cool and awesome as the movie." They, of course, succeeded. The side panels (just as important as the main pictures) were pretty cool as well. 
How can you go wrong with good versus evil?! One one side was the good: a great picture of Yoda. The opposite side was the menacing Darth Vader flanked by two stormtroopers. Pure genius!
And let's not forget the top and bottom strips. These sides and top and bottom pictures are what set the great metal boxes apart from their not-as-cool plastic off spring. Those would be just one picture (a sticker mind you!) plastered on the front and that was it. There would be no cool painting of Bespin on the bottom of the plastic lunch box. Nor would there be a picture of everyone's favorite droids on the top. Only if you had the mighty metal lunch box, would you get to enjoy these great pictures on a daily basis!
The Empire Luchbox also paved the way for the future with a brand new invention called the flip-top thermos. Before, you had the usual thermos that you had to open and pour and then drink from the attached cup if you were dainty or drink right from the thermos if you were cool and manly. I was neither. I put a straw in mine and drank it that way.
With the advent of the flip top, all you had to do was take the cup off, flip the top and you were good to go!!! Spill proof! (sort of - kids will always find a way to spill their drink) And what was cooler was as you were drinking from your cool new flip top, you got to show off your love of the great Jedi Master by showing his image before you. (a good lunchboxer always had the image on the thermos facing out so their friends could see!)
This lunchbox also featured one of the first plastic latches to hold the front on and prevented all of your edible goodies from falling on the ground as you walked to school in the morning. Some of you are probably saying, "but Dartman, I had the cool metal lunchbox but mine was completely different from the one you had". That's because there were two.
The other metal lunch box featured super cool paintings from scenes in the film. Though not as cool as the photos, these were still pretty cool images to sport on a lunchbox. The photo of Luke with Yoda is represented in artistic form from a different angle and gives the great Jedi master an air of greatness by use of perspective. And it also appears that Luke has already started his traning here as his hand is extended and his eyes are closed, thus willing you to eat your lunch through the use of the Force. The flip side features a magnificent painting of the goings on in the cockpit of the mighty Millenium Falcon. This is cool as Han Solo is not represented at all on the photo model. It seems odd to me now that he wasn't. If I remember correctly, my friends and I all thought Han was the coolest of the cool but yet none of us minded that he wasn't on our metal status symbol. It might have been the fact that we were in awe of the majestic coolness of Yoda at the time. 
The sides of this box featured a collage of various characters from the film and some scenes that were non-existent on the other box. The sides showed Luke on a Tauntaun and Vader surrounded by stormtroopers, bounty hunters and Lando. (I wonder why they threw Lando in with the bad guys?)
While the top had a nice painting of the Hoth battle complete with At-Ats and the bottom had a nice space shot of the fleet of Star Destroyers. (couldn't find any great pictures of those) The thermos was pretty much exactly the same as the other one except it was blue and the image of Yoda was reversed. I'm not sure if that one came with the flip top. 
Along with these two great metal lunchboxes, there was also two plastic lunchboxes released as well. Both of them were red and were nowhere near as cool as the metal ones. The first and better of the two plastic boxes featured a strange, posed promo shot of our heros somewhere in the inner corridors of the rebel base on Hoth with their weapons drawn and pointed right at you. Kind of like, "eat your lunch or we'll blast you into kingdom come". This whole scene seems very strange to me. It doesn't happen in the film at all. Even the painted box features scenes from the actual film. Not to pick on anyone who had this one but I think it's kind of a cheap substitute for the cooler metal ones. At least put one of the photos from the metal on on the box! Come on. If you think that one's bad, there was another that was even worse. This time around, it was sticker of an X-Wing fighter approaching a planet with small shots of scenes from the film. While this does sport scenes from the actual film, it just looks cheap and horrible. Not to mention the main image just doesn't make any sense at all. 
Are we to conclude that the X-Wing pictured is Luke's as he is approaching Dagobah? I don't remember that scene looking like that! If you had this one, I'm sorry. There's nothing else I can say.
This one was mine. It was, by far, the coolest of all of the lunchboxes that year. Featuring a great photo of Luke discovering Yoda on one side and an amazing shot of the Snowtroopers on Hoth on the other. 
The original Star Wars lunchbox was cool but this blew the doors off of that one. It was almost like someone said, "We have to make this lunchbox the coolest lunchbox in the world. We have to make the lunchbox just as cool and awesome as the movie." They, of course, succeeded. The side panels (just as important as the main pictures) were pretty cool as well. 
How can you go wrong with good versus evil?! One one side was the good: a great picture of Yoda. The opposite side was the menacing Darth Vader flanked by two stormtroopers. Pure genius!
And let's not forget the top and bottom strips. These sides and top and bottom pictures are what set the great metal boxes apart from their not-as-cool plastic off spring. Those would be just one picture (a sticker mind you!) plastered on the front and that was it. There would be no cool painting of Bespin on the bottom of the plastic lunch box. Nor would there be a picture of everyone's favorite droids on the top. Only if you had the mighty metal lunch box, would you get to enjoy these great pictures on a daily basis! 
The Empire Luchbox also paved the way for the future with a brand new invention called the flip-top thermos. Before, you had the usual thermos that you had to open and pour and then drink from the attached cup if you were dainty or drink right from the thermos if you were cool and manly. I was neither. I put a straw in mine and drank it that way.
With the advent of the flip top, all you had to do was take the cup off, flip the top and you were good to go!!! Spill proof! (sort of - kids will always find a way to spill their drink) And what was cooler was as you were drinking from your cool new flip top, you got to show off your love of the great Jedi Master by showing his image before you. (a good lunchboxer always had the image on the thermos facing out so their friends could see!)This lunchbox also featured one of the first plastic latches to hold the front on and prevented all of your edible goodies from falling on the ground as you walked to school in the morning. Some of you are probably saying, "but Dartman, I had the cool metal lunchbox but mine was completely different from the one you had". That's because there were two.
The other metal lunch box featured super cool paintings from scenes in the film. Though not as cool as the photos, these were still pretty cool images to sport on a lunchbox. The photo of Luke with Yoda is represented in artistic form from a different angle and gives the great Jedi master an air of greatness by use of perspective. And it also appears that Luke has already started his traning here as his hand is extended and his eyes are closed, thus willing you to eat your lunch through the use of the Force. The flip side features a magnificent painting of the goings on in the cockpit of the mighty Millenium Falcon. This is cool as Han Solo is not represented at all on the photo model. It seems odd to me now that he wasn't. If I remember correctly, my friends and I all thought Han was the coolest of the cool but yet none of us minded that he wasn't on our metal status symbol. It might have been the fact that we were in awe of the majestic coolness of Yoda at the time. 
The sides of this box featured a collage of various characters from the film and some scenes that were non-existent on the other box. The sides showed Luke on a Tauntaun and Vader surrounded by stormtroopers, bounty hunters and Lando. (I wonder why they threw Lando in with the bad guys?)
While the top had a nice painting of the Hoth battle complete with At-Ats and the bottom had a nice space shot of the fleet of Star Destroyers. (couldn't find any great pictures of those) The thermos was pretty much exactly the same as the other one except it was blue and the image of Yoda was reversed. I'm not sure if that one came with the flip top. 
Along with these two great metal lunchboxes, there was also two plastic lunchboxes released as well. Both of them were red and were nowhere near as cool as the metal ones. The first and better of the two plastic boxes featured a strange, posed promo shot of our heros somewhere in the inner corridors of the rebel base on Hoth with their weapons drawn and pointed right at you. Kind of like, "eat your lunch or we'll blast you into kingdom come". This whole scene seems very strange to me. It doesn't happen in the film at all. Even the painted box features scenes from the actual film. Not to pick on anyone who had this one but I think it's kind of a cheap substitute for the cooler metal ones. At least put one of the photos from the metal on on the box! Come on. If you think that one's bad, there was another that was even worse. This time around, it was sticker of an X-Wing fighter approaching a planet with small shots of scenes from the film. While this does sport scenes from the actual film, it just looks cheap and horrible. Not to mention the main image just doesn't make any sense at all. 
Are we to conclude that the X-Wing pictured is Luke's as he is approaching Dagobah? I don't remember that scene looking like that! If you had this one, I'm sorry. There's nothing else I can say.
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